Gameplay Today - Because You're Always Gaming

I'm a manly man. I like guns and booze and football and loose women with big tits. Okay maybe that's an overstatement, but Candy Rush is about as meant for me as America's Next Top Model. In fact, the target demographic for the game seems to be limited to 9 year-old girls obsessed with dressing up pink unicorns and decorating them with stickers and sparkles. That and pedophiles. In fact, Candy Rush seems to take being adorable as its holy rite: something that must be accomplished at all costs, no matter how much the actual game suffers for it. The end result is that throughout, it gives the impression of trying way too hard to make you want to hug it. From an overwhelming amount of pink stuff littering the screen, to constant meows from a girl doing her best baby kitten impression, to a myriad of other such nonsense, it really felt like the game was shoving its cuteness down my throat. Because of that more than anything else, I found myself physically and mentally unable to play what should be a relaxing game for any significant length of time.

Vomit-inducing cuteness aside, the part of Candy Rush that's a game basically consists of a conveyor belt which moves its track around the screen from left to right with an initially empty box in the center. It's up to you to fill that box with four pieces of candy and shove it into a slot, giving you points and another empty box. It starts out stupidly easy with only one type of candy to work with. Eventually though, it works up to many different candy varieties, different combinations of which gives you different point values. At the end of each level, you're congratulated by what sounds way too much like my kindergarten teacher praising you for whatever medal you got, or consoling you if you didn't get one. As you progress in the game, it gets slightly harder and more complex, but never what could be interpreted as difficult or frustrating.

The game's visuals, while good on a technical level, represent such an onslaught of attempted cuteness that it goes right past improving the game with a unique art style, and comes full circle to detract from the experience. The conveyor belt for example, is set at strange angles and is lopsided at a clear attempt to make a more interesting looking environment. However, the iPhone screen is much smaller than what the conveyor belt demands, so that a piece of candy will exit the screen and become impossible to grab at two points on its progress across the track. In this simple yet fast-paced game, this becomes extremely annoying and detracts from the experience, especially later on when you're packing fudge (couldn't resist) as fast as humanly possible.

As far as the sound design goes, Candy Rush's sound effects both repeat so often and try so hard to sound so adorable that they very quickly become grating to my testosterone-filled ears. As far as the game's music goes, it's upbeat and despite the fact that the same track repeats for each level, the rest of the sound design becomes unbearable far before the music has a chance to. Still, my main problem with the game across the board, is its annoyingly persistent attempt at cuteness. If your adorability (that's a word now) tolerance levels are high enough to put up with that, the rest of the experience can be a fun, relaxing way to spend some time.